MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) - A whistleblower has filed a lawsuit against Marquette County. The suit says a county employee was wrongfully terminated after alerting his superiors to cybersecurity concerns within the county’s network. The summons was filed Monday.
According to the summons, Paul Carley started working with Marquette County as an information systems manager in May of 2012.
This July, the county was undergoing an audit of its information systems. At that time, the county also hired Houghton-based Karhu Cyber Security (KCS) to do an additional audit. That’s when Carley told his superiors there couldn’t be two audits happening at the same time.
The attorney representing Carley says the county wanted to allow more access for KCS employees than was legally allowed.
“They wanted all access for multiple employees,” said Robert Howard, Cunningham Dalman P.C. Attorney. “There was also the issue where somebody had installed a device on the system that tapped into the system without the knowledge of the county administrator.”
Documents show that around July 7, Carley responded to alerts that something was trying to access the system and found a personal computer hidden behind a copier running an unauthorized operating system called Kali Linux.
Carley says that device was running a brute force attack on the network, trying to gain access. He brought the concerns over a lack of background checks and violations of security protocols to his superiors’ attention.
The summons...
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